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Senators' suit seeks data on FCAT graders

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 25, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - Two Democratic senators sued the state Department of Education on Monday, seeking information about the academic credentials of temporary workers hired to grade essay questions on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

The suit alleges the department has violated the state's open-records law by failing to disclose that data.

"They denied the public records request saying that it was trade secrets," said Senate Democratic Leader Les Miller of Tampa. "We don't think they were trade secrets."

Miller was joined in the suit, filed in Circuit Court here, by Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale.

"This is just grandstanding; this is just politics," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "It's kind of shameful, to be honest with you."

Besides assessing individual students in reading, writing and math, the tests are used to grade, reward and punish schools in Bush's A-Plus school accountability program. The DOE also plans to award merit pay to teachers based on how much their students' FCAT scores improve.

"They want to undermine the FCAT rather than celebrate the success that we've had and try to create doubt," Bush said. "I'm not going to buy it."

Miller, who is running for Congress, denied that he and Campbell, a candidate for attorney general, are out to derail the FCAT.

"We're just saying if we're going to have this test ... let's have educators grading the tests," Miller said.

DOE spokeswoman Cathy Schroeder said she couldn't comment on pending litigation, but Education Commissioner John Winn last week defended the hiring of temporary workers by the company that administers the tests, CTB/McGraw-Hill.

FCAT graders must at least have bachelor's degrees and a background in the subjects they are scoring, he said. They also receive training constant monitoring. If they have problems, they are retrained or let go, Winn said.

"We have checks and double checks and triple checks ad nauseam," Winn said.

Then the state should be willing to back up those claims by releasing information on the educational backgrounds of the graders, Campbell said.

"This shouldn't be a case of "Don't ask, don't tell,"' Campbell said. "This needs to be a case of "Trust, but verify."'

[Last modified April 25, 2006, 01:07:12]